The University Senate of Michigan Technological University

The introduction to Senate Procedures 503.1.1 “Evaluation Procedures for the President”
reads, in part, as follows:

“Regular evaluation of the President of Michigan Technological University by the faculty
and staff encourages open communication, healthy exchange of information, and a shared
responsibility for university direction. This procedure allows respondents (all Michigan Tech’s regular non-student employees)
to provide input and feedback to the leadership of the university.” (Emphasis added.)

The Center for Teaching, Learning, and Faculty development will be responsible for
developing and distributing appropriate instruments to allow MTU students to provide meaningful and comprehensive feedback to those charged
with instructional duties. Instruments will consist of a series of items pertaining to generally recognized
features of quality instructional practices and will also give students the opportunity to provide their written opinions and suggestions for
instructional improvement. (Emphasis added.)

A fundamental principal in both sets of procedures is that since feedback and evaluation
are important mechanisms by which we improve what we do, we need to provide such feedback
annually. Nevertheless, we do not currently apply this principle to department chairs
and academic deans. This proposal attempts to rectify this oversight.

The proposal follows the same philosophy as student evaluation of faculty. The numerical
responses to scaled questions will be sent to the appropriate academic dean for department
chairs and to the provost for the academic deans. The numerical results and all the
comments will be sent to the administrator evaluated. The survey instrument and the
constituency completing the survey will closely resemble those that are used in the
relevant reappointment procedures. The proposal describes these elements in a procedure
with appropriate timing for implementation.

II. Proposal

The following procedure will be used in the annual evaluation of department chairs
and academic deans:

1. This procedure will be used in the years in which department chairs and academic
deans are not being evaluated for reappointment. The procedure is applicable to all
department chairs, school deans, college deans, and the dean of the graduate program.

2. At the beginning of the spring semester, the provost’s office will send a list
to the deans and chairs, identifying those who will be evaluated for reappointment
and those who will be evaluated by this procedure. A copy of the list will be sent
to the Senate’s administrative assistant, who will help to conduct the survey as per
Senate procedure 507.1.1.

3. The constituency completing the survey will be the same as that used for the last
reappointment evaluation with the exception that the list will reflect resignation
and new hires in the faculty and staff constituencies. College deans and the provost’s
office will create electronic lists of e-mail addresses of the constituencies that
will be used in the evaluation of the relevant administrators.

4. The survey will be conducted during the last week of classes and finals week of
the spring semester.

5. The survey instrument will contain scaled response and windows for comments. The
scaled response results for department chairs will be sent to their college dean.
The scaled response results for deans will be sent to the provost. All comments and
scaled response result will be sent to the evaluated administrator.

6. The provost, in consultation with the deans and chairs, will establish the use
of the survey results. The survey results are confidential, but how the results will
be used should be described on the entry page of the survey instrument to reassure
the respondents that their investment of time in completing the survey makes a difference.

7. The survey instrument should closely resemble the one used in the previous reappointment
evaluation. However, deans and the provost may change the instrument to reflect new
concerns that may have arisen since the reappointment procedure was implemented.

8. The list of e-mail addresses of the constituencies completing the survey and the
survey instruments should be sent to the Senate administrative assistant by end of
February so that all the surveys for annual review can be launched on Monday of the
last week of spring classes.

9. The Senate administrative assistant will return the results of the survey by end
of May as per the description in step 5 of this procedure.

Introduced to Senate: 10 September 2014 Sent Back to Committee: 24 September 2014 Withdrawn by Proposal Author: 25 September 2014